Fallout Wiki:The Vault Academy/General editing/Lesson nine

This lesson is designed to introduce navigation tools we use on Nukapedia to help readers find what they are looking for, including categories and disambiguations.

Categories[]

Categories are the basic tool for structuring wikis. They help organize the content, navigate the pages, and find related content. Every wiki page should be in at least one category.

It is easy for categories to get tricky, and is one of the toughest structural things to wrap your head around (at least it was for me) so don't be concerned if this is a challenge at first. The best way to determine what category an article should be placed in is by looking at similar articles. Like a large upside down tree, all categories start with Category:Main category and become more specific.

New categories[]

To make a new category, you can write it as a red link, click on it, and create as you would any other article. Category names should generally be plural, such as Category:Fallout 76 roadways or Category:Fallout: New Vegas world objects. Images have their own categories, found by the name of the subject + images, such as Category:Fallout 3 world object images. Remember that category is one of the name spaces and the way we write categories is as followed.

[[Category:Gomorrah]]

Options[]

For articles with their own identically named category, such as the article Gomorrah and the Category:Gomorrah, the only category that should be on the article is the one that shares its name. All categories belonging on the Gomorrah article should be added to the Gomorrah category instead. That way, the category Gomorrah and the article Gomorrah won't both show up under Fallout: New Vegas locations.

You have some options with categories to make them align differently. For example, if there is an article with its own identically named category, you can put it at the top of the list instead of alphabetized with everything else, by writing the category on the article like this:

[[Category:Gomorrah| ]]

Redundancy[]

An important part of understanding categories is the idea that we should always avoid redundancy or duplication. Our policies lay this out here, with the overarching best practice that a content page should be placed in only the most specific category out of a given branch of the category tree.

That means that a location would not be put under both Category:Locations and Category:Fallout: New Vegas locations, it would only be under the more specific one, Fallout: New Vegas locations. A character would not be categorized in Category:Fallout 3 characters and Category:Fallout 3 human characters, we would choose the more specific one, Category:Fallout 3 human characters. It is completely fine for an article or category to be included in several categories. Just as long as they are all as specific as can be.

The easiest way to look for the redundancies is by spotting the category and article side by side. For example, in the photo to the right, previously in Category:Fallout 4 locations, the article Suffolk County Charter School and Category:Suffolk County Charter School were both included. You can spot the redundancies this way and correct them as needed.

Disambiguations[]

These types of pages are used for similar-named articles that may be ambiguous, or commonly mistaken for one another. Articles such as character and location names are frequently added to disambiguation pages, or quests and locations that share the same name. For example, everyone named Kate is listed here.

These pages are started by adding {{disambig}}to the top of a new page, followed by the list of articles. Not all pages need disambig pages, just ones that would help with the confusion of many similarly-named pages, especially when using a suffix such as a game name or location in parenthesis. Disambig articles can be made with two or more articles listed because one article wouldn't be able to be ambiguous.

You don't have to add a category to these pages, it will be automatically added to Category:Disambiguation. Make sure all items are completely spelled out, with no vertical bar/pipe. That way, the different Kates can be differentiated on sight without entering edit mode.

[[Kate (dog)]]

[[Kate (dog)|Kate]]

Example[]

{{Disambig}}

* Characters:
** [[Kate (Fallout: New Vegas)]], [[Michael Angelo]]'s assistant in ''[[Fallout: New Vegas]]''.
** [[Kate (dog)]], one of [[Evan O'Dood]]'s dogs in ''[[Fallout 4]]''.
** [[Smiling Kate]], one of [[Sinjin]]'s underlings in ''Fallout 4''.

For template[]

The "for" template goes at the very top of an article, to help readers navigate between similarly named articles. For example, the towns Charleston and Charlestown are very close in name, and people might visit those articles on accident when searching for the other one, so we will add a line to the top to give them easy access to what they may have been looking for.

This is commonly used with character names, as many characters share names across the many games. Do not add statements such as "in the Fallout series of games" or "in the Fallout universe." We are the Fallout wiki, so these statements are superfluous, as they are implied. In cases of character names, they commonly will point to disambiguation pages, that lists every character with that name throughout the series. Only use these with characters that have a parenthesis, such as Kate (Fallout: New Vegas). If you look at that article, you will see the line at the top that points you to all the Kates.

{{for|all the characters named Kate|Kate}}

	For all the characters named Kate, see Kate.

You can also add more than one "for" template by writing them like this:

{{for|an overview of juice variants|drinks|overview of mutfruit|mutfruit}}

	For an overview of juice variants, see drinks. For overview of mutfruit, see mutfruit.

Quiz[]